Chapter 10 - The Horizon
As the sun began its slow, breathtaking descent toward the western horizon, painting the clouds in brilliant shades of gold, crimson, and deep violet, Liora walked back out onto the bridge wing.
She held two metal mugs of hot navy coffee, handing one to me before leaning against the railing beside her commander.
“Thinking about the past, Admiral?” she asked quietly, taking a sip of her coffee.
I looked down at my left wrist, where the thin silver bracelet rested against my skin, catching the last golden rays of the setting Atlantic sun.
“No, Liora,” I said, a genuine, warm smile breaking across my face as I watched another jet streak into the twilight sky. “I was thinking about the future.”
“It looks wide open, sir,” she said, looking out at the vast, unbroken ocean ahead of us.
May you like
“It always is,” I replied, raising my coffee mug toward the open sea in a silent, final toast to the boy who had once been thrown into the rain, and the man who had conquered the storm. “When you finally stop looking back at the shores you left behind.”
The engines of the aircraft carrier thrummed deep beneath our feet, driving forty thousand tons of steel forward through the waves, cutting clean, straight paths through the deep ocean waters, carrying us fearlessly into the boundless, beautiful night.
